Saturday, June 07, 2014

Reader Comments and Retorts

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What type of thinking process goes "he just walked in a run, and wasn't particularly close on either of the last couple of pitches...so I'm going to swing stupidly at the first pitch..." I can't wait for the Bourjos experiment to be over. Even in games where he does show up offensively, his brain deadness shines right through. I want him to be as good as Angel fans seem to think he is capable of being, but I'm not seeing anything in him that makes me think it's possible.

5-0 Cardinals going into the 8th inning. I'm assuming Shelby is still pitching as his pitch count was low(this is a guy who is usually challenging 100 pitches before the 6th inning, and I think this is now his third start where he's had much better pitch counts)

The guy on the hill is a major league pitcher, so he'll start throwing strikes soon enough. If anything, the hitter can be thinking "he might throw me a get-me-over fastball."

And if he would have swung from the heels, like Holliday did on a fastball over the plate, instead of a protective swing on a breaking ball well outside of the strike zone, then I can understand that thought process.

But even Al/Horton remarked, he doesn't have the excuse he was looking for the pitch he swung at. His excuse is he had no plan. Finally when the guy did throw the two fastballs over the middle he kept his bat on the shoulder. Everything in Bourjos bat sequence was wrong.

I found it hilarious that NBC ran about 4 hours of hype for California Chrome, but as they neared the start of the race their own experts picked other horses (correctly, I might add) to finish ahead of him.

I found it hilarious that NBC ran about 4 hours of hype for California Chrome, but as they neared the start of the race their own experts picked other horses (correctly, I might add) to finish ahead of him.

I found it frustrating that NBC has pushed this event for a while, and then when it comes on, our local broadcast preempts it for an hour of weather reports and recommends if we want to watch the race to go to a channel that many people don't have or watch it online...yes, exactly what I want to do, go from my 50" TV to my 17" monitor with crappy sound.

Useful rule of thumb: If the Preakness winner is getting closed in on by another horse as he crosses the line, he won't make the money in the Belmont.

Second useful rule of thumb: Anytime you see this happen and the horse in question also won the Derby, gather together however much money is available to you, and split it evenly among all the horses in the Belmont field who didn't run in the Preakness to show. You will be happy with the results. This is essentially free money because of the absurd betting that invariably gets laid on the favorite.

Ordinarily, thoroughbreds nowadays never run three races as close to each other as the Derby, Preakness and Belmont.

Am I right in thinking that most of the time, none of the horses in the Belmont have run both the Derby and Preakness, unless there's a Derby/Preakness winner whose owner then feels bound to also run in the Belmont? Clear disadvantage to the would-be Triple Crown winner.

GordonShumway: in human terms the Preakness is the 100 meter dash, the Belmont is the mile. Only the most tip-top horses can even dream of winning both, and so those horses are the only ones whose owners bother to run them in both (also owing to the fact trainers believe running such races two weeks apart is too much to ask of a horse).

I actually know next to nothing about horse racing; this is very simplistic stuff. Whenever the conditions I mentioned in #33 are met, any idiot can make money without knowing or caring about anything more important than the names of the horses--again, because the betting public goes crazy over a Derby/Preakness winner and bets him down absurd odds (and thus, the rest of the field UP to absurd odds) with no regard for whether said horse actually has the endurance to be a factor in the Belmont (many of them, such as California Chrome, do not).

David Ross is standing too far away from the plate when he's in the box. He can't reach strikes on the outside corner, let alone pitches that nibble the outside corner. No wonder he's hitting .170 this year.

I can't wait to see a game started by Buehrle and Carlos Martinez. It will harken back to the day of 2 hours 15 minute games. Watching Buehrle pitch today and it exaggerates the amount of wasted time that a batter has in the batters box. It's possible I'm paying more attention to it, because of all the talk recently of how to make the game better by speeding it up. But man there are guys on my team that pissed me off today with their wasted rituals (most notably Tony Cruz....and it made me love Matt Holliday more as he jumped right back into the batters box...maybe not Votto like, but at a rate that if the league seriously wanted to improve the time, use him as the average expected.)

Watching Buehrle pitch today and it exaggerates the amount of wasted time that a batter has in the batters box.

In comparison, Miller was taking a REALLY long time in between pitches early on.

The Jays announcers said that Buehrle lets the catcher make all the pitch selections, and he just concentrates on throwing them.
If that really is the case, that means he's not shaking off any pitches from the catcher, which would also cut down on his time on the mound.

In comparison, Miller was taking a REALLY long time in between pitches early on.

Agree his first few innings was Miller being Miller, he got better as the game wore on, but I've been watching Carlos Martinez the last couple of weeks and comparing his pace to others on the team, and it's massively better. Wainwright is good, Garcia and Kelly are ok, Miller an Lynn are at times positively Traschel like...well not that bad, but not good....but Martinez as a reliever is fantastic...not sure how that will transfer to him as a starter though.

but this past couple of weeks paying attention to pacing caused by the batters has made me realize that it's not that difficult for baseball to improve the pace of the game if they really wanted to, while still maintaining the commercial breaks.

Seriously, if they wanted to increase the pace, a much more restrictive rules on leaving the batters box to adjust their gloves or whatnot will make a noticeable difference.